Anonymous
Enigmatic Images from Unknown Photographers
Robert Flynn Johnson
Introduction by William Boyd
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| ‘Startling good … no one will ever know who took these pictures, but some you will never forget’ | | – Tim Lott, The Evening Standard |
| ‘Celebrates the chance beauty that occurs with one click in ten thousand’ | | – The Independent |
| ‘Extraordinary … exceptionally powerful – an inspiration for all budding collectors’ | | – ArtReview |
| ‘As close to perfection as a photographic anthology can get … a book in the best T&H tradition – a book over which to linger and perhaps meditate’ | | – Heritage |
It is often said that, in times of catastrophe, people find their loved ones, their family pets – and their photographs – before fleeing for their lives. The wonderfully diverse images reproduced here include many of transcendent beauty and psychological insight, all with the magical, mysterious charge that comes from speculating on the circumstances in which they were taken.
The number of collectors of anonymous photographs is growing exponentially. Robert Flynn Johnson has spent more than a decade on a personal journey of discovery to find the works reproduced here. These photographs are pleasurable and poignant, giving insight into the human secrets with which we can all identify.
Robert Flynn Johnson is Curator in Charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. His publications include The Plant Kingdoms of Charles Jones, Artists’ Books in the Modern Era 1870–2000 and Lucian Freud: Works on Paper. William Boyd is the author of eight novels and three collections of short stories. He writes regularly on 20th-century art and is on the editorial board of Modern Painters magazine. In his ‘speculative memoir’, Nat Tate: An American Artist, he made widespread use of anonymous photographs.
Also of interest:
The Postcard Century: 2000 Cards and their Messages
Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Artless Art
The Plant Kingdoms of Charles Jones
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